


don't make those eyes at me

by jiyuuhonpou



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: M/M, Pre-Slash, oblivious!Kagami, passive-aggressive!Kuroko
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-18
Updated: 2014-07-18
Packaged: 2018-02-09 11:07:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1980609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jiyuuhonpou/pseuds/jiyuuhonpou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kagami's a little bit clueless and Kuroko's a little bit stubborn.</p>
            </blockquote>





	don't make those eyes at me

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from _plastic smile_ by Perfume.

Kagami is in the middle of idly throwing shots from the free-throw line, waiting for Kuroko to finish catching his breath after a quick game of after-school one-on-one at the local street court on a Tuesday evening, when Kuroko chooses to drop a bombshell on him.

“Kagami-kun, I like you very much. Please go out with me with the intent of starting a romantic relationship,” Kuroko says as Kagami shoots. The ball misses the backboard spectacularly and rolls toward the surrounding fence. Kagami distantly notes somewhere in his mind that he should probably run after it, but he’s too busy trying to process what Kuroko just said.

For starters, he feels more surprised at Kuroko’s timing rather than anything else. Maybe instinctively he’d sort of suspected all along Kuroko might have harbored feelings towards him that were more than just friendship; maybe subconsciously, he’d noticed Kuroko’s gaze always tended to linger a little longer on him than necessary. If he spent too much time thinking about it, he’d just brushed it off as really intense admiration, a phase Kuroko would grow out of.

_But to go so far as to want a romantic relationship? Wouldn’t that normally involve…_ kissing _and stuff? Does that mean Kuroko wants to_ kiss _me? Or do things even_ further _than that?_

Kagami briefly imagines kissing Kuroko and shakes his head immediately. He doesn’t find it disgusting per se (which in itself is probably something he should reflect upon long and hard later, but right now’s not the time for introspection), but he’s not turned on or anything by it, either. Kissing Kuroko would be like kissing Alex (well, okay, probably with a lot less tongue) — there wouldn’t be any romantic attraction on Kagami’s part.

"Do you hate me, Kagami-kun?" inquires Kuroko, gazing up at Kagami.

"Of course I don’t hate you, idiot," Kagami instantly replies without thinking. Kuroko’s eyes widen slightly, and Kagami realizes he better nip this in the bud and get rid of any false hope Kuroko might have. "But I’ve never looked at you in that way before, and I won’t in the future, either," he clarifies.

There, he’s said it. It sounds cold, but it would probably be worse to lead Kuroko on with a half-assed answer. Even though he’s not attracted to Kuroko in that way, it doesn’t mean Kagami doesn’t consider Kuroko an important friend. After all, Kuroko is the shadow to his light, his basketball partner, and one of his precious teammates. He owes it to Kuroko to be truthful, at the very least.

Kuroko, of course, looks disappointed at Kagami’s reply. “I see,” he murmurs as he studies his basketball shoes, and Kagami has to fight down the urge to give him a (completely platonic) hug. He starts to extend his hand tentatively towards Kuroko to pat him on the head, cheer him up, do something, _anything_ to soften the blow.

"To be honest, I wouldn’t have confessed at all unless I thought I had a chance," Kuroko sighs dejectedly.

_That_ revelation makes Kagami stop cold in his tracks.  ”Wait, _what_? What the fuck makes you think _that_?”

Kuroko throws Kagami his patented _don’t-be-daft-Kagami-kun_ look as he starts to count off the points of his argument on one hand. “You spend a lot of time in my company. We’re together almost all of the time—”

"Of course we’re together all the time, idiot! You sit right behind me in class and we play on the same team!"

"You take care of me whenever I get exhausted or pass out during practice.”

“ _Somebody’s_ got to do it,” grumbles Kagami.  Sure, at the beginning of the year, the seniors had more or less forced the task of keeping track of Kuroko onto Kagami, but now it was just second nature for Kagami to keep an eye out for his shadow.

"You often pat me on my head," points out Kuroko, unfazed. "You don’t do that to Furihata-kun or Kawahara-kun, and the three of us are similar in height."

Kagami pauses, clenching the hand that just minutes ago had almost done exactly what Kuroko was talking about; Kuroko has a point there. He hides his fist guiltily behind his back before realizing Kuroko usually called him out on it whenever he gave Kuroko a noogie anyway.  ”Wait a minute, you always push my hand away when I do that! I thought you hated it!”

"That’s because it’s embarrassing when you do it in public. I don’t like to blush in front of other people if I can help it."

"I don’t think you’re even capable of blushing in public with all the shameless shit you say all the time," Kagami retorts.  The only times he’s ever seen Kuroko get red in the face were due to exhaustion or heatstroke.

"I’m weak when it comes to being pat on the head," Kuroko replies dreamily, touching his own head lightly.  "It feels quite pleasant. If you sit down on that bench over there, I could pat you on the head as well?"

"I don’t need a pat on the head!" shouts Kagami.  The only person who he’d let pat him on the head (that wasn’t a family member) was probably Kiyoshi-senpai, and even then Kiyoshi-senpai had only ever done so while Kagami was distracted.

"Anyway," Kagami continues, "maybe you’re just mistaking love for, like, really close friendship or something?" He knows he definitely sounds like an asshole for implying Kuroko’s feelings might be nothing more than a mistake, but he’s not really sure how to phrase it any better. Eloquent language was Kuroko’s strong point, not his.

"No, there’s no mistake about it. I’m completely head over heels for you, Kagami-kun," Kuroko declares without an ounce of hesitation or embarrassment. His voice trembles with sincerity as he clutches his chest. "Sometimes I long for you so badly it hurts to breathe."

Kagami doesn’t know how to respond. He takes a step towards Kuroko and almost reaches out to him again, but stops once he realizes touching Kuroko right now would probably just make things worse. He really hates to see Kuroko cry though, and right now Kuroko looks like he’s on the verge of tears.

"I’ll… be right back, okay? I’m just gonna get the ball," he says, and it comes out sounding even more pathetic than it does in his head, but he figures Kuroko needs a minute to compose himself. He sprints over to the fence behind the backboard to pick up the ball, and as he comes back to the free-throw line, he hears Kuroko muttering something that sounds suspiciously like "so appealing to his compassionate side won’t work."

"What was that?"

"It’s nothing, don’t worry about it," Kuroko says, more loudly this time. "I have a request, Kagami-kun.  Please go on a date with me this Sunday, and then decide if you still wish to reject me or not."

"Have you even been listening to me for the past couple of minutes?" Kagami asks incredulously. "I’m telling you it’s impossible— I’m not gay!"

"Think about it as going on a date with me instead of going on a date with another male," suggests Kuroko.  "Besides, I have absolutely no intention of letting my feelings affect our play style or teamwork, either way, so you have nothing to lose by going on just one date."

"…Just one date?"

"Just one date," repeats Kuroko, "and I’ll never bring it up again."

Kagami considers Kuroko’s request.  In the year or so that they’ve known each other, Kuroko has never broken a promise to Kagami, so if Kuroko says he won’t bring up his confession again after one date, he probably means it.

Of course, it doesn’t help that Kuroko’s staring up at him with his stupidly big and stupidly bright blue eyes—damn it, Kuroko knows Kagami’ll eventually give in to just about anything if he makes that dumb imploring expression long enough!

"Fine," Kagami sighs as Kuroko’s entire face lights up, "One date, this Sunday. We go back to normal right afterward. Got it?"

"Understood." Kuroko takes the basketball from Kagami’s hands. "I’ll see you at school tomorrow, Kagami-kun, and I’ll definitely make you realize your feelings on Sunday."

"Yeah, sure, see you tomorrow—wait, what?” Kagami yells for what has to be the tenth time in just as many minutes, but Kuroko’s already left the street court before Kagami can make him take back his last statement.

 

* * *

 

Kagami arrives at school the next day bracing himself for what will inevitably be the most awkward confrontation of his life, but Kuroko greets him normally.  In fact, the rest of the day feels like any other Wednesday except for two things:

1) Throughout all of morning classes, Kagami feels like Kuroko is staring at him.  The weight of Kuroko’s gaze on Kagami’s back is nothing new, but today it seems more intense than usual. Kagami even turns around a couple of times to glare back at Kuroko— the first few times, Kuroko looks right back at him impassively until Kagami finally relents and breaks eye contact, embarrassed; the last time, Kagami gets whacked on the head by their teacher for not paying attention.

2) Whether it was walking in the hallways, eating lunch on the rooftop with the rest of the basketball team, or even during the warmup in practice, Kuroko never strays more than twenty centimeters from Kagami’s side.  It isn’t quite close enough for them to be touching, but it’s closer than what Kagami was used to.  

In fact, he doesn’t get a reprieve from Kuroko’s proximity until afternoon practice — Coach calls Kuroko aside to discuss possible training strategies to refine Kuroko’s passing technique, leaving Kagami to pair up with Kawahara instead for shooting drills.

"Hey, Kawahara," Kagami says after the second round, "do you think Kuroko’s acting weird today?"

"No," Kawahara pants as he grasps his knees in an effort to steady his breathing.

"Really? You don’t think he’s, like, sticking too close to me or anything?" asks Kagami, doing his best to sound as nonchalant as possible.

Kawahara looks up at Kagami, bemused. “Isn’t that normal for both of you?

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you two are the rookie ace combo, and you’re in the same class.” Kawahara shrugs. “When you’re together you’re always bickering with each other, and even when you’re not together, both of you always look like you’re looking for the other guy.”

"I don’t do that!" Kagami sputters. Fukuda and Furihata both stop their own drills to look at Kagami questioningly, but Kawahara waves them off.

"I don’t look for Kuroko," Kagami protests again, more softly. "I just keep tabs on him so he doesn’t pop up out of nowhere and scare the shit out of everyone."

Kawahara rolls his eyes. “Even when he’s not using misdirection and clearly talking to someone that isn’t you?”

"He’s really stubborn," counters Kagami. "He might get into trouble and pick fights with people."

"That only happened once at the beginning of the year, and you jumped right in with him," says Kawahara. "The only person Kuroko picks fights with on a regular basis is you, and I wouldn’t even call those fights."

"What would you call it, then?"

After pausing for a few moments to ponder over the question, Kawahara winks at Kagami, pointing a finger at him and pretending to shoot. “Lovers’ quarrels?”

Kagami opens his mouth to respond with that is a clearly incorrect observation because Kuroko and I are not in a mutually romantic relationship nor do I harbor any sort of romantic feelings of any kind for Kuroko, but what comes out instead are several loud spluttering noises that don’t even remotely resemble words.

"Kagami, are you choking? Your entire face is red!" yells Furihata as he drops his ball and runs over to where Kawahara and Kagami are standing, Fukuda not far behind him.

"I think you actually broke Kagami," observes Fukuda while Furihata pounds Kagami’s back.

"I didn’t mean to!" Kawahara says apologetically.

"Hey first-years, quit fooling around unless you want to run extra laps!" Riko screams from across the gym. Kagami looks up from his coughing fit to see Kuroko looking straight at him with an unreadable expression, so he looks away immediately.

"Are you sure you’re okay, Kagami? Your face just got even redder," Furihata unhelpfully points out.

"I’m fine! It’s nothing!" Kagami says quickly. "I’m gonna go run those laps now!"

"Wait a minute, Coach didn’t actually tell us to do laps yet!" cries Kawahara.

"I’m taking the damn initiative!” Kagami yells, beet-red as he runs out of the gym.

 

* * *

 

On Thursday morning, Kagami finds a love letter in his shoebox.

The stationery is pale pink, intricately cut around the edge to resemble lace, and smells very faintly of perfume. The contents declare how the sender had admired Kagami from afar for quite some time now and requests they meet in the courtyard under the cherry blossom trees during lunch so Kagami could give a proper answer.  The handwriting is neat and round and Kagami doesn’t recognize the name signed at the bottom, but it sounds like a girl’s name so he assumes as much.

Kagami’s gotten a lot of call-outs ever since the end of the Winter Cup; after all, not every sports team in a school less than two years old can claim to be winners of a national tournament, and not every high school student can claim to be the ace of said team, either.  He’s so used to it that he’s even got a standard rejection response ready for confessions— thank the girl for her feelings and support, but state that his focus right now is basketball and he doesn’t want to lose sight of that by getting a girlfriend.  It’s the truth, really, but his seniors had stressed the importance of thanking the confessor after inadvertently witnessing Kagami’s first reaction to a confession, which was to say rather bluntly, “Sorry, but I have no clue who you are.” Japanese societal formalities made no sense to Kagami sometimes.

Granted, that argument pretty much fell apart and crumbled to dust in front of Kuroko’s confession, but everyone else he’d ever had to use his regular rejection line on had accepted that in Kagami’s heart, basketball would always be number one.

He’s all prepared to deliver this standard reply to the girl appearing under the cherry blossoms at lunchtime, but something stops him at the last minute and he responds with an “I’ll think about it” instead.  Unfortunately, Kagami doesn’t realize how quickly gossip spreads at Seirin High, and the entire team calls Kagami out on it the minute he enters the locker room.

"That girl’s in my class!" Koganei exclaims. "She’s the vice president of the tea ceremony club, right?"

"So she’s the Yamato Nadeshiko-type? Kagami, you lucky bastard!" Fukuda playfully punches Kagami’s arm while the others voice their agreement.

"It’s not like that," Kagami protests. "I didn’t flat out say yes."

"But you didn’t say ‘no’ either." says Kuroko. Kagami’s been studiously avoiding his gaze all day, despite feeling the familiar prickle at the back of his neck, but when he turns around, Kuroko is too busy rummaging around in his locker to look at Kagami.

"That’s not—" Kagami starts to argue, but Hyuuga barges into the locker room and cuts him off.

"Everyone stop messing around! Hurry up and get to the gym before Coach makes us do extra laps for being late!"

As the rest of the team scurries out of the locker room, Kagami glances over at Kuroko, who’s still facing his locker and fiddling with the buttons of his shirt. Kagami sighs and quickly changes into his gym clothes without saying a word to Kuroko. He’s almost at the door of the locker room by the time Kuroko finally breaks the uneasy silence.

"Do you even know her first name, Kagami-kun?"

Kagami opens his mouth to retort that of course he knows her name, only to find he actually doesn’t. “Hana? Sakura? Tsubaki? Something flowery,” he answers lamely.

"So you just care about looks, then," Kuroko says as he pulls on his gym shirt.

"Like I said, it’s not like that!" Kagami exclaims. "Maybe if I get to know her better, I’ll start to like her or something."

"Isn’t love something you fall into, not something you force onto another person?"

"Oh, really? That’s rich, coming from _you_ ,” scoffs Kagami. He knows it’s a low blow but there’s something judgmental in Kuroko’s tone of voice that pisses Kagami off more than it should. “This has nothing to do with you anyway.”

"It has everything to do with me," says Kuroko as he shuts his locker door with more force than necessary. "Think about it. Kagami-kun has rejected every single love confession he’s ever received, except for the one he gets right after my own confession. Furthermore, you yourself admit you’ve neither rejected nor accepted her feelings. In the end, aren’t you just using her to prove to yourself that you don’t have feelings for me?"

"T-that’s not true—"

"Even if it wasn’t true, you’re still leading her on." Kuroko glares at Kagami. "I expected better from you, Kagami-kun."

"Fine! Fuck it! I’ll tell her no, okay!?" snaps Kagami. "Are you happy?"

"You can do whatever you please, Kagami-kun," Kuroko replies calmly, but the corners of his mouth are turned up the highest Kagami’s ever seen outside of a basketball game.

"Whatever," Kagami throws his hands up in frustration and defeat. "Just hurry up and finish changing. We’re already late for practice. Maybe Coach’ll take pity on us and only make us do ten laps around the school instead of twenty." He opens the door to the locker room as he tries to think of a semi-viable excuse to avoid the full brunt of Coach’s wrath.

"By the way, just so you know, you never forced anything onto me," Kuroko says from behind him.

"Huh?" Kagami glances over his shoulder towards Kuroko, who’s staring straight at him with an intensity that makes Kagami’s chest tighten.

"I fell in love with you the moment I first met you. It just took me a while to realize that."

"There you go again, spouting embarrassing shit in public," mumbles Kagami as he turns away and slams the locker room door shut, ignoring the heat rising in his cheeks.


End file.
